Site Guidelines and Help
Creating a User ID *You will benefit more from the wiki from creating an ID for yourself. You will have fewer ads. You will be able to receive communication from other users and Wikia. And most importantly your edits will have a history of trustworthiness when people know that your edits are from you and reliable. *Look at the upper right of the page, and click on Create ID and follow the instructions. Creating Articles *An article is the wiki name for an entry. Agencies should have one article only, unless the agency is so large that its separate offices perform different functions. A guideline used in the setting up of the site was that if an agency had multiple address, then each address would have its own article. This may not be exact for some agencies, but it was necessary at the beginning. If someone believes an agency can be set up more efficiently, please set it up. *Do a Search to see if an agency already has an article before creating a new one. Try to use a single word from the name, and then do a Search Full Text on that single name to ensure the most accuracy. The search engine will sometimes return no hits when the word does exist in an article. It is more accurate when the word is in a title. We are looking into ways to improve the accuracy of searches. *Use the input box at the bottom of the Main Page to type the name of your article. If you make a mistake, you will have to delete the page and start over, or create a new article with the new name and change the mistake to a redirect page, see below. *A redirect page is useful when an agency goes by different names. **Start by having a primary page set up already. **Next, copy the exact name of that page. **Create a new article with the new name. Try to include other names if they are any. **In the body of the new article, on the first line, type "#redirect exact name of page" without the quotes, and with [ [ ] ] surrounding the name. **Save the page, and test it by clicking on the new link under LIST ALL PAGES and see that it goes to the primary page. Article Formatting *If you see formatting in an article, or somewhere on Wikia, click on Edit or View Source on the top of that page. Scroll to where the interesting format is, and see how they code it. *When experimenting with formatting, it's good to use "Show Preview" before saving your change. You can always hit Cancel or the back button to erase the changes. *Surrounding a word in two single quotes makes the word italics. Surrounding the word with three makes it bold. Surrounding it with five makes it bold and italic. *You can surround headers with two equals signs for top level, three for next level. *You can put an asterix in front of the sentence to make a bullet point. *You can put a # sign in front of the sentence to start a numbered list. *Just because the articles were created with text only, it is possible to insert boxes, or graphics, on any article. The coding to make boxes or "post-its" like the main page is a little complicated but can be done. It's always best to copy what you like from some other page, paste it into your page, and change it around. Links *To include a reference to another LAHR wiki page, surround the name with two [ [ ] ] brackets. *To include a URL, you can insert the URL without any brackets. Or if you want the display to be a simple name instead the long URL, type the new name after the URL with a space in between, and surround the whole thing with single brackets. Look on the Main Page at the code for the PHC website as an example. *To change the display name for an internal page, type a | pipe (appears next to the brackets on the keyboard, shift-\) after the page name. See the Main Page for examples, such as the HAP page link. Adding or Changing Categories *Look at the source for the Main Page, and at the bottom all of the current social service categories are listed. Copy what you want from there and paste it into your article. If you want to create a new category, you can by just typing a new name in the same format. To add it to the Main Page you will need to contact an administrator. Uploading Files *Use the Upload File link on the left menu, and then select your file through the next screen's menu. After uploading a new wiki file name and location should be visible. Copy that file name and paste it where you want in your article. Surround the name with single brackets. Type a new simple display name after the link but still within the single brackets. See the Main Page source for the Mayor's Memo as an example. *Currently the only text files that can be uploaded are PDF files. You can convert Word docs and other formats to PDF for free using this web site: https://www.pdfonline.com/convert_pdf.asp. Or you can e-mail the document to the LAHOMELESS.ORG administrator David Beall david@sfrevival.org who can convert it for you. Category:Administration of this site